To Snore or Not to Snore...

So I don't know if I have ever mentioned it but Farmer Brown has a wicked snoring problem. Normally I just put up with it and a quick jab to his ribs generally results in him turning over and the quiet resumes.

I don't know what has changed. Maybe it was the arrival of our baby girl and the fact that sleep is of a premium now. But the snoring was getting so bad that Farmer Brown has been sleeping in the spare room at the other end of the house. The snoring is so bad that I can still hear him from down there!

We decided to investigate some options for fixing this. Off to the GP we went. He said that he would refer us to the ENT specialist in Hamilton. We got our appointment and off we headed. The Doc was really great, very informative and confidant that he would be able to either better the situation or fix it completely.

Farmer Brown would need to have to simple proceedures. First they would work on his soft palet and uvula (dingle dangle at the back of your throat). The Doc would reshape/reduce the uvula as well as increase the opening in the soft palet on either side of the uvula. This would create a bigger space for air to pass through when Farmer Browns tongue relaxes and drops to the back of his throat. This would be a half hour proceedure and would be painful afterwards, however strong pain relief would be given for us to take home and use.

Proceedure date arrived and off we headed to Hamilton with much hope. I didn't even have time to leave the surgery rooms before Farmer Brown was back out from having the proceedure done. He looked pretty good, if a little groggy, but that was to be expected. We would return in a week for a post op checkup.

Home to bed he went to have a rest for the remainder of the day. Loaded up on pain relief he slept the afternoon away.

So has it worked or not? Well that remains to be seen! I must admit that I am a little disappointed with the results as they are at the moment. He is still snoring and sleeping in the spare room. I am hoping that as the swelling goes down that the snoring will reduce and it will either become a lot quieter or stop altogether.

It has been 2 weeks since the proceedure was done and I must admit that some nights the snoring is little or none at all but other nights it is just like before the proceedure was done. We are to return to the Doc towards the end of the month for the second preceedure. This being to have to quote the paperwork: to have his turbines reemed! This will hopefully encourage Farmer Brown, who is a habitual mouth breather, to breath through his nose more and thus reduce the snoring issues.

We look forward to returning to have the final proceedure done and to see if it finaly has the results we are looking for!